Students at the Georgia Institute of Technology can now use the cryptocurrency bitcoin to pay for everything from tuition to concession-stand hot dogs.

Bitcoin is a decentralized online currency, meaning that its transactions are verified by a network of users rather than a bank. Users exchange bitcoins for goods and services with each other and with retailers that accept bitcoins, like Overstock.com, Amazon, Target—and now Georgia Tech.

Students can use bitcoin two ways on campus: by buying concessions via bitcoin point of sale devices at Bobby Dodd Stadium, or using bitcoins to fund their BuzzCards, student cards that can be swiped to pay for campus goods and services.

Students can also “leverage the BitPay/Bitcoin acceptance program for the payment for student tuition, fees, room, board, and other expenses,” James Pete, Georgia Tech’s senior IT director, said in an email.

The concession payment option was launched at the school’s Oct. 5 football game, Pete said. The BuzzCard option was soft-launched Sept. 29, with a formal announcement coming this week, he said.

Transactions in bitcoins are still rare on campus. Jan Jahosky, who works in media relations at BitPay, estimated that fewer than a dozen bitcoin purchases were made at the football game when BitPay was first accepted.

“I’d say it’s probably small right now,” said John Dreyzehner, who works in business development at BitPay, though the company has high hopes for its partnership with Georgia Tech. He said using BitPay benefits both students and the school since BitPay, unlike credit card companies, charges no transaction fees.

He added that BitPay could be especially beneficial for international students, who have to pay hefty currency conversion and wire fees and often have to carry significant amounts of cash on planes. Dreyzehner said that with bitcoin, there would be no fees.

Dreyzehner added that bitcoin could be educational as well as convenient for students.

“The whole invention of bitcoin itself is really fascinating and that’s what I think is valuable for students to learn about,” he said. “This is probably one of the most significant inventions of their generation. It’s important that they know a little bit about the technology and how it can potentially shape their future.”

BitPay has several ties to Georgia Tech, as the company’s founders, Tony Gallippi and Stephen Pair, are alumni. The company began discussing bringing the BitPay payment option to campus last spring, Dreyzehner said. They also reached a sponsorship arrangement with Georgia Tech’s corporate partnership rights holder, IMG, to get their logo on the stadium’s field—a deal paid for in bitcoins.

Dreyzehner himself accepts his entire salary in bitcoins.

“All employees take a percentage of their salaries in bitcoins,” he said. “We all really believe in bitcoin being the future.”

Georgia Tech’s athletic director, Mike Bobinski, said he is excited to create his own electronic bitcoin wallet, though he hasn’t done so yet.

“I have every intention to do so because I’d like to actually experience it myself and I think it’s got some really tremendous and interesting applications,” he said.

In the past two years, bitcoin supporters have had to weather suspicions about the reliability of the cryptocurrency, when one bitcoin exchange was shut down for facilitating illegal drug deals and another filed for bankruptcy protection, with hundreds of thousands of bitcoins disappearing in the process.

But Bobinski said that Georgia Tech is assured of bitcoin’s security. “We have not had any issues or any anxieties with that,” he said. “Like a lot of new technologies, there’s a shakeout period of sort of uncertainty early on but I think they’ve managed their way through all that and at this point in time we feel very comfortable.”

He added that bitcoin as a new technology naturally appeals to the university’s tech-savvy students. “They’re still very much in an introductory phase, but I think again it’s something that fits Georgia Tech extremely well,” he said. “I think it’ll do nothing but take hold in a bigger way as time goes by.”

Published on October 16, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Maggie: mmcregan@syr.edu